Solution for steering wheel buttons

I thought how it can be possible for drivers to make mistakes with steering wheel buttons. Last year Hamilton, now Kovy, and I am sure other drivers in the past.

Good that these drivers are not flying F16's, but that same thought made me thing of a possible solution for the steering wheel button-problems: the button needs to be activated before being used

Since these buttons are not to be operated in fractions of seconds (such as the gear flippers) teams could incorporate an "activation step" prior to pushing the button.

One solution could be:- that there is a global activation button on the steering wheel to activate all buttons.

Other solution (instead of a global activation button) could be that:- every button needs to be pressed twice before its function can be triggered. So 1st push for activating that button and 2nd push for triggering the function.

Or on the other hand let them make a mistake. Isnt that the point of the new regs, that drivers should be responsible if they make a mistake?
As Martin Brundle said: Good driving is rewarded while mistakes are punished. Exactly the way it should be in my opinion.

another solution would be to connect all those switch's to radio servo's and put the switch's in the pits, so the driver who needs to focus on the road can call back to the pits and have the guys sitting around not moving 100MPH+ flip them.

Are there any engineers familiar with these systems on this board to explain exactly how the pitlane limiter is implemented on a F! car? Its just that I cant for the life of me believe a button that knocks off speed can be left unguarded on those busy steering wheels. Surely its not that difficult to implement logic preventing accidental activation of the limiter no?

Originally posted by WildmouseX another solution would be to connect all those switch's to radio servo's and put the switch's in the pits, so the driver who needs to focus on the road can call back to the pits and have the guys sitting around not moving 100MPH+ flip them.

Originally posted by Fatgadget Are there any engineers familiar with these systems on this board to explain exactly how the pitlane limiter is implemented on a F! car? Its just that I cant for the life of me believe a button that knocks off speed can be left unguarded on those busy steering wheels. Surely its not that difficult to implement logic preventing accidental activation of the limiter no?

I know how we implement it, but it may not the same system as McLaren. I can't give out details, but I believe some teams do have a form of safety built in, but you want the pit lane limiter to come on quickly, say if you call your driver in for a suddent pitstop, the last thing you want is a stop and go for speeding in the pit lane.

rules are often changed for the sake of saftey... all it would take is one driver to get hurt from wrecking while trying to play with those things at speed.

Nascar has a "kill engine" button on their wheel that can't be covered because it has to be avilible for them to hit if the throttle hangs in a corner. of course F1 has way more buttons, and doesn't often find themselves going into a corner with the throttle pushed all the way to the floor, but it is an example of why they wouldn't put a cover on a button like that.

A driver has more than enough time to prepare for pressing that button until he reaches the speed limit marking line at the beginning of the pitlane.
Actually I was thinking it may be possible to see if the fuel cap is open when Alonso overtook Kovalainen. I forgot to set up my computer to record the race and can't check right now.

I don't understand why it caused a speed drop. Isn't it supposed to be just that, a "limiter". Why would it cause the car to slow down without manually applying the brakes? I would like to know just how it "limited". Was he stuck under a certain number of revs in that gear? And if so, how did it slow down?

Sounds like we have another driver aid that needs to be gotten rid of.

Originally posted by rolf123 I don't understand why it caused a speed drop. Isn't it supposed to be just that, a "limiter". Why would it cause the car to slow down without manually applying the brakes? I would like to know just how it "limited". Was he stuck under a certain number of revs in that gear? And if so, how did it slow down?

Sounds like we have another driver aid that needs to be gotten rid of.

The speed didn't drop. Both he and Alonso were accelerating down the straight but once he hit his button his speed remained constant whereas Alonso's was still increasing, giving the appearance that the McLaren was slowing.

Originally posted by Fatgadget @ Wildmousx. Would I be correct in saying said unguarded Nascar kill switch is positioned in such a fashion that it is almost impossible to activate it accidentaly?

no, there are two posts that go from the center of the steering wheel to the hand grip - in the middle of the right post is the "radio talk" button, and in the middle of the left post is the " kill engine" button. knowing right from left is all the driver has to know to hit the right buttons - however there are times when they accidently hit the engine kill with their water bottle, or an elbow or something.

Originally posted by glorius&victorius I thought how it can be possible for drivers to make mistakes with steering wheel buttons. Last year Hamilton, now Kovy, and I am sure other drivers in the past.

Good that these drivers are not flying F16's, but that same thought made me thing of a possible solution for the steering wheel button-problems: [B]the button needs to be activated before being used

Pressing the wrong buttons is pretty rare. Hamilton did not press the wrong button last year.

I dont think we need the activation method you mentioned for all buttons on the steering wheel. At the most, in the interest of safety, they could move the pit lane speed limiter button to the middle of the steering wheel where it will be difficult to press it by mistake.

I didn't think Kova's mistake was even possible. Someone in McLaren needs to re-think the system and the positioning of buttons in the steering wheel. It shouldn't be possible to activate a speed limiter in the middle of a straight just like that.

Originally posted by WildmouseX another solution would be to connect all those switch's to radio servo's and put the switch's in the pits, so the driver who needs to focus on the road can call back to the pits and have the guys sitting around not moving 100MPH+ flip them.

As someone has pointed out - such "remote control" is not permitted... but even if it was, involving the driver in many of the adjustments would be redundant anyway, as most are made in response to instructions / suggestions which originated on the pit wall. All that would be necessary would be to notify the driver that a certain adjustment was being made.

Going on with the thought as to whether a driver is capable of operating the correct switch at the correct time... if they can't then give them less buttons to play with (or take out all of the onboard controls, mount a camera on the front of the car and let the engineers control throttle, brakes, gear change, engine management and steering from the pits ;) ).

Originally posted by rolf123 I don't understand why it caused a speed drop. Isn't it supposed to be just that, a "limiter". Why would it cause the car to slow down without manually applying the brakes? I would like to know just how it "limited". Was he stuck under a certain number of revs in that gear? And if so, how did it slow down?

Sounds like we have another driver aid that needs to be gotten rid of.

It limits the engine speed, the equivalent of lifting off the throttle. Do that in any car and it will slow down, do it in an f1 car and it will slow down quicker than a road can with the brakes applied.

Well, given the fact that the ECU code was developed with Microsoft, I am surprised a pop up window doesn't appear whenever they try doing anything saying "Are you SURE you want to do that - OK or Cancel".

what surprised me was Heikki Kovalainen mistake. Is incredible that in Mclaren they have not done anything since Lewis fault in Brasil (2007) which cost them so much. In Ferrari, the speed Limiter only engages at low speed, never when the car is a full speed. Its surprising that they haven't address this issue. I still can't explain it.

can anyone point me to anything definitive that says Hamilton pressed the PitLane Limiter in Brazil.

i have seen this assertion repeated, and echoed, and then re-echoed, to the extent that some people now seem to think it is actually proven as such.

i just watched the onboard clips again, and yes in the corner he pushes the limiter button, but the cockpit displays are already flashing before he presses the button, he presses it a few more times, and tries a few more options before he is able to restart at proper speed. it seems to me something happened to the car before he started pressing buttons atttempting to resolve the problem.

i also watched all the mclaren pitstops from onboard (both cars), and when the limiter is depressed, the displays do not flash. when hamilton is back up to speed and for the rest of the race his displays do not flash.

what caused the displays to go into this (error-condition?) mode.

we saw how quickly Heikki was able to get back up to speed after pressing his Limiter, why did it take 30-40 seconds for Lewis to get going again, especially as we saw him press the limiter button (to cancel) a few more times very soon after the supposed initial press that "caused" the problem

if nobody knows for sure, that's fair enough, i just get a little nervous whenever i see speculation reported and then repeated as fact.

but either way, a 10pence flip-up cover over the button would be a good idea.

Originally posted by Tenmantaylor Stop mollycoddling them... my logitech wheel has 16 buttons and i just won a race online eating foxs crunch creams and drinking a cup of tea without turning my TC off or pit limiter on.

Just put it down to experience heikki and move on.

Without turning your TC off? You are in contravention of the 2008 FIA Sporting Code. Please send your Logitech Wheel and $100,000,000 to the FIA, Place de Concord, Paris, France to the attention of: MM. Fine to be paid in cash, non-sequentially numbered bills.

According to Ferrari, its only possible to activate theirs if the car is in a low gear which seems sensible enough. Not sure why you'd want it active all the time, either limit it by speed (say within 30mph of the pit limit) and/or gear selection.